I am asked every so often about what my tools of choice are in being the most productive in my work. Here are just a few of the freelance tools I use almost every day. Have some items you prefer better? Leave a comment below.

• Hardware:

  A Mac (17″ MacBook Pro or 13″ MacBook Air) + 24″ Apple Cinema Display

  This gives me the flexibility and really is the best of both worlds. It allows me to work from almost anywhere. While at home in my office I can plug either laptop into the display and have a large screen at my disposal. I can share the screen across both the laptop and the cinema display or close the laptop and just use the large display. When traveling I’ll take the air with me as it’s built for travel, easy to get open on an airplane, and is a super fast machine. Depending on the work I’m doing for the day I may opt for either laptop to take a ride with me to the local Starbucks if I need a change of scenery.

  iPhone 3GS

  By far the best phone ever. I don’t know how I would even live without this device. In all seriousness, this one device allows me to get all kinds of things done while on the go… email, checking on my business social networks, managing deadlines, talking with clients, etc. The only downside is that it’s more than two years old and the battery barely lasts a day. With iPhone 5 just around the corner, I think it’s about time for an upgrade.

  iPad (original)

  Although not as versatile for me as a laptop, the iPad is great for responding to emails, interacting with clients on social networks, reading technical books, and testing websites. It’s extremely portable and has great battery life.

  Wacom Intuos4 Wireless Tablet

  This graphics tablet is top notch and works great with graphic software applications like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. If you spend your day creating digital artwork, doing photo manipulation, designing websites, etc., get one of these. You’re job will be much easier.

• Software:

  Coda

  Definitely my code editor of choice. I ditched Adobe Dreamweaver for this application about 4 years ago, and haven’t looked back. It combines a great text editor with a FTP client, great search and replace features, version control, terminal access, and even has books to allow you to lookup functions, parameters, etc. right from within the application. Definitely worth the $99 price tag and then some.

  MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

  This is an all in one package used to test dynamic PHP/MySQL websites on a local apache based server. I usually begin development of every project this way and eventually move it to a staging server before it hits production. It’s super convenient when I don’t have access to the internet as I can continue to work on a project and push out the changes to the live server later.

  Sequel Pro

  This is the best, most stable, database management application I have found for the mac. It allows you to connect to local databases remote databases through several different methods. With it’s tabbed interface it’s easy to manage multiple databases at once as well. If you do any database management on the Mac, get this application. It puts PHP MyAdmin to shame and it’s free. Can’t beat that.

  Transmit

  By far, this is the best FTP client application for the mac. Easily upload files to several different types of servers from your local machine, or choose to move files between two remote servers. Transmit even allows for mounting remote servers directly in the finder for easy drag and drop uploads… a super convenient and time saving feature.

  On The Job

  Great application for keeping track of billable time spent on projects with a built-in timer, invoicing capabilities, and client management. I’ve tried several invoicing apps for the mac and this is by far the easiest one to use, especially when creating my own custom invoice templates. Invoices can be sent directly to clients in PDF format via email.

  Wunderlist

  A very simple, but powerful GTD (get things done) app. The things I love about this application are its ease of use, availability across multiple platforms (Mac, iPhone, iPad, etc.), and it’s own built-in syncing capabilities (create a todo on the iPhone, then edit it on the Mac or iPad later). You can also share lists for collaboration if needed.

  Postbox

  Although the improvements within Apple’s mail application for OSX Lion are welcomed, Postbox still blows it away in terms of ease of use and features. The ability to keep track of email threads and the ability to “quick reply” directly within the message itself is definitely a time saver. Emails can be assigned topics, colors, etc. for easy sorting, and searching is quick and painless.

  Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS4

  These are the go to graphics applications for professionals and set the industry standard. Nothing really comes close to their feature set. Although I’ve tried to use other comparable applications for various reasons I keep coming back to these two due to the number of tutorials and amount of help you can find online. Also, for collaboration it’s just easier sometimes to use what everyone else is. If you’re doing web or print design, it’s almost certain that you’ll be sending and/or receiving either a .psd or .ai file at some point.

  Camtasia

  Camtasia is a screen recording application that allows you to record anything that you’re doing on your mac. It provides the ability to not only capture footage of the whole screen, but just parts of it, or even video from the mac’s iSight camera.

• Miscellaneous Items:

  LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen

  I absolutely love this pen. This pen not only records what you’re writing, but can also capture live audio that syncs with the text you’re writing at the time. When the pen is plugged into the computer all the latest notes and recordings are loaded in the Livescribe desktop for viewing/listening, and/or syncing with services such as Evernote for easy collaboration. This would have been great for lectures in college.

  Blue Snowball USB Microphone

  This is my microphone of choice for recording screencasts through Camtasia. The sound quality is great for the price tag and it’s simple plug and play via USB.

Most freelancers will tell you that one of the hardest things about freelancing is finding clients. In an effort to gain new clients I am implementing a referral program that rewards you with 10%* of the project fee for the client you refer. This will be in effect until further notice. If you know of someone that is in need of one of my services, please let me know about it.